Team America Rocket Challenge

[OtherTom]

Folks,

My son is off to the Los Alamos Middle School next year. There is a
concern among some parents about the lack of non-sports related clubs
at LAMS, I am considering starting a TARC team there. I would
appreciate some advice. Who has experience with establishing and
mentoring a TARC team? How much time per week should be devoted by
parents and teachers? Most important, could the Zia Spacemodelers
sponsor the team and assist with official launch records and timings?

I've been to the TARC website (www.rocketcontest.org), and started
reading the handbooks and other resources. I think it would be an
excellent project for the middle school, and I've already gotten some
very positive feedback from students and parents.

If you've got some advice, let me know. The more prepared I am for
this, the better!

Many thanks,

Tom Venhaus
White Rock

[Thomas E. Beach]

Tom,

I don't think any of our local members have mentored a TARC team.

As for your question about "could the Zia Spacemodelers sponsor the
team and assist with official launch records and timings?", I don't
think that NAR sections sponsor TARC teams, but we certainly can have
them come fly at our monthly launches for the official timed flight
attempts (our posting in the Launch Windows on the NAR website says
that all TARC teams are welcome to come to our launches...although
none has ever contacted us).

--Tom

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[w9ya]

The group here in Albq. (Albq. Rocket Society) has a number of guys that have worked with TARC teams. Perhaps contacting the club might be a way to get some info. (I know that the club pres. Bill Beggs and one of the former officers Jerry Cross have done the mentoring for sure. I would guess there are others. Plus Dave Founds and Ronda Cole do the La Luz Academy stuff for the Air Force's Research Labs at Kirkland, a program geared towards middle school students and utilizing HPR..... any of these folks would be a good bet to talk to. Plus I did a beta-pilot program for La Luz-AFRL directly at Bosque Academy and have been asked to do so again this coming fall.)

We can talk this coming weekend if you are coming down to White Sands for the National Sport Launch. Otherwise you can contact me late next week.

- Bob F.

On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 4:28 PM, Thomas E. Beach <thoma...@mindspring.com> wrote:

Tom,

I don't think any of our local members have mentored a TARC team.

As for your question about "could the Zia Spacemodelers sponsor the team and assist with official launch records and timings?", I don't think that NAR sections sponsor TARC teams, but we certainly can have them come fly at our monthly launches for the official timed flight attempts (our posting in the Launch Windows on the NAR website says that all TARC teams are welcome to come to our launches...although none has ever contacted us).

--Tom

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[OtherTom]

Thanks, Tom. I guess that's what I was thinking when I said
"sponsor". Poor choice of words, perhaps. Anyway, I'm just getting
some opinions at this point. I'm not sure if a team of just middle
schoolers would work. I worry about the kids' ability to focus at
this stage of their lives. Their rocket really has to be theirs, with
no hands-on work from adults. I know of some sixth graders that have
that ability to really focus on a project like this, and they've been
the ones most interested. So, we'll see. But perhaps this needs to
be extended to high school.

Thanks, and I'm sure I'll have more questions.

Tom


On May 27, 4:28 pm, "Thomas E. Beach" <thomasbe...@mindspring.com>
wrote: